Victim Blaming Needs to Stop

An example of victim-blaming is telling a woman who has been raped that it was her fault, and she should have been able to stop the assault. This line of thinking happens in other areas of life, including in some churches.

Decades ago, my oldest son was in college and was having car trouble. I asked our pastor to be in prayer agreement with me that the vehicle would make it home for the weekend. I was furious but held my peace when he replied that my son must have missed a principle.

He was implying that if my son dotted every I and crossed every T, he would have God's favor and his car would not have mechanical difficulties. Anyone who owns a vehicle understands that they all need maintenance at some point.

This pastor, like many Christians believe you can control everything and never have any issues if you make positive confessions and give money to the church.

This line of thinking does not consider random situations that people have no control over. I know a woman who was made to feel that if she had prayed harder and fasted more, her husband would not have walked out. Some things happen no matter how much you pray.

Her husband was a veteran of the war in Iraq and was suffering from PTSD. They went to counceling and he was placed on medication, but he was never the same and moved to another state.

This young woman later shared that every wife she knew of a soldier in Iraq was now divorced because their husbands were going through the same thing.

Many men and women wrote for the Hubpages website, which is in the process of shutting down. This was a business decision influenced by the changing landscape of content writing and the emergence of AI-generated information.

None of the writers did anything to cause themselves to be out of a source of income. Everyone who wrote for the site has lost that opportunity.

Some cancer patients have been told they were not healed because their faith was not strong enough. What a cruel thing to say to someone fighting for their life. Some things are beyond our control.

I have recently been listening to people as young as 40 say their bones hurt when it's about to rain. I am 67, and that is not my reality. I thank God I don't have that issue, but I would never criticize anyone who does. I would not imply that I have special favor with God, and they must have done something wrong or missed a principle.

I have been able to lose 30 pounds easily through diet and exercise. I would not tell someone who is on prescribed diet medication that they missed a principle or that they would lose weight without the meds.

I know firsthand what it's like to be talked down to over something you had no control over. I have been harshly judged whenever I have lost a job and experienced financial loss. I have been told I must not be tithing, or I have done something to block my blessing.

I recall a young man in a wheelchair who was told by his pastor that he would walk whenever he was ready. This preacher blamed the victim, who was born with pieces of his brain missing and had cerebral palsy.

My advice to the readers is to never put someone else down because you are successful in an area and they are not. What you may believe is a reward for working principles could be the grace of God and good luck. You never know when life will change.